Please allow me to interject my feelings about Mother Nature

This is a traffic camera picture from this morning of the I-10 bridge over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge:

 

Texan reporting in here after 11 hours without power. The line about “rolling blackouts” is a complete load of horseshit. In many areas, like mine, it has been a total and uncontrolled loss of power due to statewide demand surpassing even the projected high from 2027–ie, their expected max after six years of growth!—and on the supply side, 30 GW of capacity going offline, mostly due to natural gas issues. It is looking like ERCOT fucked up in truly spectacular fashion—after this is done, heads are going to roll. Hopefully without a lot of people dying from hypothermia in the process.

 

Forecast here in Michigan is for steady temps about 10 degrees (wind chills -10)
with 6-10 inches of snow over the next 18 hours -- to go along with the 6 or so already on the ground.
No reports of power problems as yet.
Some people are already out snowblowing sidewalks and driveways -- we're not gonna screw with it until morning.

 

In other words (as someone who grew up in the Buffalo southtowns snowbelt), ain't no big deal. It's winter on the Great Lakes. Comes with the territory.

I lived 30 years in snow country. Never thought winter was such a big deal until I moved away. It snowed in December, January and February, sometimes in November and sometimes in March. I didn't know anything different.

 

Other than some stray flakes and flurries, the precipitation is over here in Mississippi. We got about an inch of ice and freezing rain and depending on where you were you might have gotten more snow than ice. The rain/snow line was a little west of Jackson.
Now we begin the next phase. It's 18 degrees right now, will drop into the single digits later tonight, and won't get above freezing until Wednesday afternoon. So all of this stuff on the ground isn't going anywhere for a while. All of the interstates have been shut down since the first 18-wheeler tried and failed to get over a hill. Throw in a few actual wrecks, and people are abandoning cars and trucks and heading for shelter. It's a mess.
My favorite Facebook posts today are the ones from people urging others to stay off the road, and then an hour later asking if any restaurants are delivering.

 

Also, at Ole Miss today, the cops rushed in to break up a snowball fight. Only thing missing for this is "Bad Boys" dubbed over their arrival.

 

Well, in addition to the 6-10 inches on tap for tonight, they're calling for 3-5 more on Thursday, then 2-4 additional on Saturday/Sunday. That could give us close to two feet on the ground total, counting the 4-6 we had by this morning.

They're also predicting winds 15-25 mph so that snow will be drifting up.

 

Just a touch of freezing rain in Greater Boston tonight, followed by rain that'll wash it away by noon. Thursday-Friday seems like a classic misery nor'easter, a big dose of snow followed by sleet, freezing rain, then rain, followed by subfreezing temperatures turning the whole mess into concrete. But we're good for at least one, usually a few more than that, of those a winter.

 

Temperatures aren't supposed to top freezing for the next week, so we won't have ice glazing all over everything.

 

The best thing to come out of Red Stick is an empty bus. But we'll take empty highways.

 

Funny how all the Texans (and folks in NC who think akin) who are so quick to point out California's wildfire-preventative rolling blackouts are awfully mum today about the cold-weather version they are experiencing.

Must be because they can't get on the Internet, amirite?

 

I don't know which shows worse judgement, the Oregonian publishing this when there are literally thousands of people living in cars and on the streets of Portland - and not by choice, or my many friends (most on the progressive side who care very much about the homeless situation) talking about being without power for a couple of days and moving into a hotel. I get it - but it kind of cuts to the heart of the "prividge" argument.

How an Oregon woman built a camper van and left everything behind